for the oneshot asks ♡ these have all been so lovely!
ignore how it's been like. almost two years (WHAT THE HELL THE PASSAGE OF TIME IS SCARY) i am doing these again and got inspired for this one so here you go lol!
Ena huffs and erases her sketch for what must be the thousandth time. The intense erasing sound drowns out the peaceful bubbling sound of the fountain she's sitting a few feet away from.
"Mizuki, I am straight up going to kill my art teacher," she deadpans. Mizuki cackles as she continues. "How the hell am I supposed to 'transfer the magic of this rose to the page'? What does that even mean?!" She smacks her sketchbook with the back of her hand in frustration, causing a dull ache in her hand and absolutely no damage to the sketchbook. "This is so not fair! I'm not even a caster!"
Mizuki plays with her hair. "Hey, this is your own fault for taking such hard classes."
"Shut up!!" Ena pushes Mizuki lightly, causing Mizuki to laugh even harder. "Cut it out or I'll throw you into the fountain," she threatens, but her tone gives her away. Ena tunes out her laughter to try and focus on her subject. She stares at the rose in front of her, made purely of light magic. Whoever made this had to shape that magic into those thin strands, and then delicately sew those together into the shape of the flower she sees now. She mimes how she imagines they did it, trying to get some sort of concept of how to draw it.
"Ughhhhh, this is IMPOSSIBLE," Ena groans, slumping against the brick museum wall. She buries her face in her hands. "I'm gonna fail! And then I'm not going to have enough credits, and-"
"Um, Ena," Mizuki nudges her arm, to no response.
"-they're gonna kick me out, and then I'll-"
"Ena," Mizuki implores, grabbing and shaking Ena's shoulder lightly.
"-and nobody's ever going to want to buy my art again and my career will be OV-"
"ENA!" Mizuki yells, and shakes Ena rather forcefully.
"WHAT?!" Ena moves to shove Mizuki's hand off of her, but freezes because between them is a single, unnaturally still, bubble. She reaches out and pokes it, and it POP!s with a loud sound like a cartoon. "What the..."
Mizuki gestures out towards the rest of the courtyard. Tens, maybe hundreds, of identical bubbles are scattered around the space,
"How... did these..." Ena stammers, a little in awe of the sight.
"They all showed up when you were freaking out." Mizuki says, but she has a melody to her tone that implies something Ena doesn't understand.
"You know... like how people find out they're casters allllll the time in anime?" Mizuki continues, and Ena scoffs.
"Oh, come on! That's not something that happens in real life," Ena protests.
"Look around! It happened! What other explanation is there?" Mizuki gestures, and Ena stops to consider it, at least. If she's really a caster, maybe she could...
Ena mimes stretching something out like a string, the same motions she did earlier when she was mimicking the light magic. Miraculously, bright blue springs out of her fingertips, and forms a thin line like the lines that make up the rose. She gasps quietly. This changes everything. For starters, this assignment is going to be so much easier-
Mizuki cuts off Ena's train of thought before she can give herself too many delusions of grandeur. "Okay, so now that you've probably got this impossible assignment covered, why don't you take me out to dinner? Y'know, since I helped you discover your magic and all."
"You are SO annoying," she laughs, and Mizuki winks.
"That's why you loooove meeeee," she stretches out her words, and dodges swiftly as Ena tries to punch her in the shoulder.